Deep Inside Role Playing Games

It’s easy to think sometimes that art is a limited medium, or at the very least relegated to its own narrow focus. Composers write songs and perform concerts. Writers write books and hold signings. Musicians play in orchestras. Painters and sculptors display their work in galleries. To experience this work, you must go where the art is. It’s impossible to make a living as an artist in this world without a patron or independent wealth. But these are fallacies to be sure.

Despite its many problems, our capitalist system is great for a few things. For one, it can reward the immensely talented. Strong natural ability combined with drive and luck creates success. Those individuals that can locate a need and fill it, no matter how niche, are destined to do great things.

There are many ways that art can fill a need. The most obvious would be the actors, illustrators, and composers used in Hollywood to create blockbusters. But art is not limited simply to performance—it is varied, applicable, and commonplace. It exists across areas of the economy that are often unexpected. The Dwarvenaut is a documentary that examines one such artist. It’s the story of how an artist can take an idea and fill a need that the rest of the world didn’t even know existed.

Most Americans will have at least heard of “Dungeons and Dragons”, the dominating, quintessential role playing game that lurked in the basements of a certain type of teen during the ‘80s. It’s still going strong today, of course, with games happening all over the country, still in basements of a certain type of teen, but also in the spare rooms of a certain type of adult.

As our society becomes more plural and accepting, and the nerd/geek style becomes more chic, D&D is not quite the marker of the strange that it was. For some reason, at the beginning of its popularity, the game suffered from right wing, religious paranoia, billed as a gateway to black magic and devil worship. Of course, this just heightened its demand, especially among teenagers that hadn’t found any other way to rebel.

My experience with D&D is limited to a few unfinished, late night campaigns in high school. It was a harmless chance to act goofy with my friends. For others, though, D&D is a way a life.

Stefan Pokorny was one of these teens. Stefan was a talented artist who had no interest in school. His adoptive parents, New York immigrants who took him to Europe in the summers, gave him a unique childhood on the streets of Brooklyn. D&D was his escape from the mean streets of New York and it gave him an opportunity to express himself in ways that he couldn’t find elsewhere.

Much later, after being rejected by the artistic community for his interest in realism, Pokorny found himself working in a miniatures shop and developing an idea that ultimately led him to success. Through the implementation of Kickstarter campaigns, Pokorny creates miniature, expertly detailed dungeons for players of “Dungeons and Dragons.”

The documentary focuses on his latest Kickstarter, which raised over $600k in one day, as well as his visit to Gary Con (the annual “Dungeons and Dragons” convention named in honor of game creator Gary Gygax) where he hopes to drum of support for his new city of Valoria.

The film is entirely focused on the art and background of Pokorny, a celebration of his peculiar endearing personality and his artistic vision. It is his story, told through his eyes, in his words. As such, the film suffers some from a lack of perspective.

We get very little in the way of outside interviews, no clarity on the nature of Stefan Pokorny from the outside. There are hints at substance abuse, and deeper struggles and complexities, but the film seems content to focus on the positives and in some ways promote his company Dwarven Forge.

The film is short on real emotion—the only instance of Pokorny not being his chipper, weird self is at the end when he visits the final resting place of his parents. It might have done better to explore this side of its subject, rather than focus entirely on his work.

Even with these lapses, The Dwarvenaut is an entertaining look at a subculture and an artist that works on his own terms. Documentaries are meant to open the eyes of the audience to new worlds. The Dwarvenautshows us a smaller one and makes it seems large.